Solidarity Forever
An Operating Engineer was what my dad was called
He ran the big equipment, and I guess he drove them all
Dozers, graders, drag-line cranes, he worked ten hours a day
From spring through fall, six days a week, he drew good union pay
He’d usually come home close to dark, all sunburned, cloaked with dust
Us kids would all race down the hill, to greet him, to be first
He’d stop the car and pick us up, on fenders up we’d ride
We hung from running boards and doors, rising like the tide
Euclid scrapers, high-speed pumps, he “sloped” with Cat D8s
Through parts of west New England and all through New York State
He worked the New York Thruway and Route One-Forty-Five,
Milking cows at four am to keep the farm alive
In summer’s dust and searing sun his lips and hands would crack,
And he’d rub in Bag Balm Ointment that he carried in a sack
In winter’s numbing wind and cold, he stood ten hours a day
To watch an air compressor pump water from a quay
We’d go to work with him sometimes when work sites were nearby
And ride the big equipment, it was dusty, hot and dry
LaVerne and I and sometimes Doug would go and spend the day
With diesel fumes & roaring “Eucs” as dozers pushed away
And though he had his issues, he was held in high regard
And I never heard him once complain ‘bout working so damned hard.
When someone said I looked like him at a Hill reunion chat
Tom O’Hara softly said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that”.
And though I’m not religious, as all friends will attest
Here’s a spiritual iota to which I must confess
Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high
I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky...
Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky.
100 Years Ago, 1908 Was A Leap Year Starting On A Wednesday
On Sunday April 27, Clifton John Hubbard Was Born
On Sunday, February 1, Mary Carbonelli, Mary Ann’s Mother Was Born
On Monday, July 14, George Vincent Hallenbeck, Mary Ann’s Father Was Born
Mass productions arrives as the first Model T rolls of the assembly line. It sold for $850 & a Cincinnati mayor said woman aren’t physically fit to operate a car. 200,000 cars from 24 manufactures were sold that year.
· The Air Age arrives as Orville Wright was awarded a $25,000 contract by The War Department to build the first military airplane. He builds the plane and uses it to makes the 1st one-hour airplane flight but it ends in a crash and his passenger, Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, became the first person to die in an aircraft accident.
· The Great White Fleet was sailing around the world and at the time, the event was a logistical and technical triumph for the US and President Teddy Roosevelt
· The first Mother’s Day was held in Philadelphia, cellophane was patented, Ex-Lax Co. is founded and the Geiger counter was developed
